


there's an albatross around your neck

by CallicoKitten



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Asexual Character, Gen, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Game(s), and eventually so does josh, and they cry and stuff together, essentially post recovery sam moves in uninvited to mikes apartment, mike and sam and josh are the sole survivors, sam is asexual and you cant proof differently, this is totally a legitimate outcome what do you mean it isnt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-17
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-04-21 06:40:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4818986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallicoKitten/pseuds/CallicoKitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike ignores it mostly, focuses on getting back to normal. Tries and fails to get back into the swing of college, has awkward get togethers with friends he feels like he has nothing in common with anymore, joins a gym, goes on a few dates that go appallingly.</p>
<p>It might not sound like it but he's doing well.</p>
<p>Like Dr Hill says you don't get over something like that, not ever, it's always going to be there and pretending it isn't isn't going to help. What you can do though is learn to live with it, get used to it. People, Dr Hill says, can get used to just about anything.</p>
<p>And then they find Josh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	there's an albatross around your neck

**Author's Note:**

> my first playthrough ended in disaster because im a huge dummy so this reflects that playthrough
> 
> im totally on the josh/chris bandwagon so expect that sometime soon too
> 
> title is from weight of living by bastille

It's a month before Mike can sleep for more than a few hours at time, another two before he sleeps the whole night through.

It's not so much the nightmares - Jess screaming as she's yanked through a window, the sight of Em and Ashley and Chris and Matt hanging on those hooks - it's the silence. It's the lying in the dark waiting for the nightmares, hyper aware of every single little sound, going over all of it over and over.

If he'd been quicker with Jess.

If they'd stuck together.

If he hadn't stuck his hand in that _stupid_ machine.

If - If - If -

He plays it all out around and around, analysis every little choice he made, everything he could have done differently lying in his stupid empty apartment staring up at his stupid dark ceiling.

His parents turn up every day at first, make sure he eats, makes sure he takes his meds and keeps his appointments with the psychiatrist they've picked out for him and Sam. Dr Hill's not half bad, even if he did royally screw things up with Josh.

(Okay, so maybe Mike should cut the guy a break with that but honestly, being sent to someone who's previous patient went so off the rails they set up an elaborate Saw themed prank for their friends isn't exactly comforting. Sam likes him though, so that's gotta count for something.)

He doesn't seem too bothered about the fact that he and Sam slip up sometimes and talk about monstrous creatures hunting them rather than a vengeful ex-employee of Josh's family.

Doesn't seem to bothered when they stop talking about the man completley.

Jess's funeral is first and Mike doesn't like to think about how the neat little headstones that have popped up in place of his friends follow their order of death exactly. Doesn't say this to anyone except Dr Hill after Em's funeral in this kind of rushed breath that he has to repeat three times to be understood.

The funerals are awkward and honestly, if Sam wasn't still around he wouldn't bother going. There's just not much appealing about having your friend's parents stare at you with red-rimmed eyes wishing _so openly_ that it was your empty coffin they were lowering into the ground and their kid was the one standing here looking vaguely lost.

It gets easier once they're done with but even after that there's still the media circus to deal with. People calling for their arrests (Ashley's parents, Jess's parents), people demanding to know what really happened up there. It's front page news for about a month, there are a few hastily put together late night specials and really awful true crime episodes.

The internet explodes, of course and Mike stops leaving the house unless he really needs to.

There's this awkward few weeks though where they're waiting for the Washington's to announce a funeral for Josh. It took them nearly six months to have one for Hannah and Beth and even then it was only for Josh's benefit, _to give him closure_ , they had said. And Mike remembers knowing they still had hoped their daughters had somehow survived.

They haven't given up though; barely a week goes by without them hiring some new team to storm the mountain. Police, psychics, private detectives.

Mike ignores it mostly, focuses on getting back to normal. Tries and fails to get back into the swing of college, has awkward get togethers with friends he feels like he has nothing in common with anymore, joins a gym, goes on a few dates that go appallingly.

It might not sound like it but he's doing well.

Like Dr Hill says you don't get over something like that, not ever, it's always going to be there and pretending it isn't isn't going to help. What you can do though is learn to live with it, get used to it. People, Dr Hill says, can get used to just about anything.

And then they find Josh.

-

It's Sam who calls him, they haven't really stopped talking since that night, constant streams of texts and tweets and phone calls at midnight when one or both of them can't sleep. She's the only who gets it, for obvious reasons.

"They've found him," is all she says and there's something in her voice that makes him drive over to her parent's house keeping her on speaker phone the entire drive.

Sam's done the smart thing and taken a year out from college rather than straight up dropping out like Mike and it feels odd, sitting here in Sam's childhood bedroom surrounded by animal posters and greenpeace flags on a twin bed with squirrel print sheets.

Sam was always closer to Josh than Mike was so he sits quietly, lays his non-maimed hand on her shoulder while she breathes deeply.

"He's okay," she's saying. "He's okay. It's not just us anymore."

But Josh was done in the mines almost two months.

It's impossible.

-

It takes a while to convince Josh's mother to even let them see him in the interim between their recovery and Josh being found she's convinced herself that this whole thing was some bizarre scheme between the two of them to kill her last remaining child. And honestly, Mike doesn't blame her.

(And it's not like she's the only who thinks that. They've both lost friends to the rumours that he and Sam _Natural Born Killers-ed_ their way through their friendship circle.)

Mr Hill's already been by the time she caves and he breaks patient-doctor confidentiality by telling Mike and Sam all about it in one of their joint sessions.

"He started screaming as soon as I walked into that room, poor boy," He shook his head. "This may have just destroyed him."

It's only when they actually get to the hospital when Mike realises how little he wants to see Josh, how fucking _pissed_ he is at him. Because yeah, Josh might not have killed anyone but it was _his_ fault they were up on that godforsaken peak. _His_ fault they were so freaked out in the first place.

All because of his dumb as fuck revenge scheme.

But Sam's here and her eyes looking fucking brighter than they have since that day and Mike really doesn't want to ruin it for her.

And he tries.

_God,_ does he try.

But in the end stewing quietly is not going to cut and he's always been a man of action so he fucking stops in front of Josh's hospital room and shakes his head and storms off a little ways down the corridor.

Tries to get it under control, puts his palms against the cool wall and leans until his forehead presses against it too. Takes a few deep breaths. Counts to ten. All that bullshit but nope.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

He can't fucking do it.

"Fuck," he mutters, mostly to the wall. "I can't fucking do this, Sam."

Sam's still a little way away from him, watching with infinite fucking patience with an expression that would probably seem more at home on Dr Hill's face.

"What's wrong?"

" _Fuck,_ Sam! I'm still mad at him. I'm _so damn_ mad at him for all the bullshit he put us through! _Fuck_!" He closes his eyes again. "If that _psycho_ hadn't brought us up there in the first place - I could _fucking_ strangle him, Sam."

He cuts himself off when Sam lays a comforting hand between his shoulder blades and says, very quietly, "Don't you think this is how Josh felt after last year."

And fuck she's right and Mike knows it.

See here's the thing, Mike's always rationalised the Hannah thing by blaming everyone else. It was Emily's plan, it was Matt's fault for not talking them out of it, it was Hannah's fault for overreacting and running out into a fucking _blizzard_ -

But he knows none of that is true.

He's as guilty as if he pulled the trigger himself.

(Which is why it doesn't make sense that he - of all of them - got off that mountain alive. Sam makes sense, she wasn't involved. Mike didn't even feel _guilty_ consciously.)

"Come on," Sam says gently. "We have to do this."

-

Josh looks very pale and very thin and there's a  scar on his cheek from where they've stitched it back together and his hands are bandaged up tight ( _from frost bite,_ the nurse assures them but Mike assumes _frost bite_ is code for _fucking wendigo claws._ )

His eyes are glassy and unfocused and the first few times he sees them he seems to honestly have no idea what his own name is let alone the events of the past few months.

Mike's pretty relieved by that. It's much easier to sit in silence while Sam speaks gently to Josh, reminds him who they are and smiles brightly whenever he remembers little details about whatever anecdotes she's recounting for him.

It doesn't last though because of course it fucking doesn't.

The fourth time they visit he's bright eyed and alert and his mother meets them at the hospital to warn them not to _excite him because he's in a very delicate stage of his recovery._

He goes wide-eyed when they walk in and they both freeze. Mike's not sure what Sam's expecting but he's definitely expecting Josh to scream blue fucking murder.

"You - " Josh stammers. "You're _alive._ "

Things get worse after that.

Josh remembers bits and pieces and apparently his mother's decided that he shouldn't be told what happened. It might mess him up, you see. Instead she's content to let him grasp at straws and ask them over and over where Chris is.

Chris. It's always fucking Chris.

_Did Chris make it out?_

_Chris is dead, isn't he?_

_He never got to be with Ashley?_

It drives Mike fucking nuts but Sam just sits there an holds Josh's hands and answers over and over.

_I'm so sorry, Josh. I'm so, so sorry._

Mostly, Josh remembers his part in the whole thing and mostly it results in him sobbing, _I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry_ over and over until someone comes and politely asks them to leave.

He never talks about his time in the mines. Neither of them ever ask.

-

Eventually, Josh gets moved to a low security psych hospital.

Eventually, Mike stops visiting him, much to Sam's annoyance.

"It's not doing anyone any good going over the same things every fucking day," he tells her, arms crossed.

"Yeah? It's not like I _enjoy_ reliving the worst night of my fucking life everyday but he _needs_ us."

Sam for her part has at some point started living in Mike's apartment, which honestly, Mike doesn't really mind but he would have liked to be involved in this decision. _I couldn't breathe at home,_ she told him. Mike got it.

It's kind of nice to have someone to lie awake with at night. Someone to wake you up when you have nightmares.

And it's not like _that,_ never will be with Sam (which Mike is fine with, by the way) but Mike only has one bed and his couch isn't exactly comfortable.

They settle into this kind of odd new existence, Mike takes a low pressure job at his dad's company where he's allowed to take breaks and storm out if he needs to and Sam starts working nights at an animal hospital. Little by little people forget about them.

People get used to it.

-

Mike doesn't see Josh until he gets out of the hospital, he comes home one day to find Josh and Sam on his couch watching Disney films. It's kind of sweet, really but also really, really not because Disney films are dark as fuck when you really get down to it and also, Mike feels like he should probably be informed when his unofficial roommate invites people over.

He stares at them for a good few minutes and Sam shoots him smile that as much says _try it dummy,_ as it does, _you wouldn't yell at little old me, would ya_? And Josh is resolutely silent, looking up at Mike with wide green eyes and chewing on his bottom lip.

Mike sincerely considers leaving, then he considers playing the _this is **my** flat, Sam _card but in the end he does neither. Slams out of the room instead and sequesters himself in the bedroom to play violent video games.

-

"Has it ever occurred to you," Dr Hill asks, "that are transferring your anger at yourself onto Joshua?"

"No," Mike grits out, which of course means yes.

Mike's not stupid; he knows rationally that Josh is about as to blame as he is for what happened that night. Maybe even less so. Josh was out of his mind and his prank - as fucking horrifying as it was - didn't _directly_ lead to anyone's death.

Not like Mike's prank.

Dr Hill makes a disapproving face, "We will have to discuss your guilt eventually, Michael."

Mike curls his hands into fists, _not if I have anything to do with it._

-

Josh pretty quickly becomes a regular feature around Mike's apartment. It's part of Josh's release agreement, Sam tells him, that he's not really allowed to be alone for long periods of time.

Of course, this means that every now and again, Mike's on babysitting duty.

It starts off small, they don't talk, they sit in silence and watch tv or play video games until Sam gets home and acts as a mouthpiece. It's awkward but it works.

He doesn't actually speak to Josh until the day Sam's managed to convince him to come to one of their joint sessions with Dr Hill. It's taken weeks on Sam's part and Mike's still not one hundred percent sure whether Sam's doing it for Josh's benefit or her own but either way, he's here for Sam. He knows how much this means to her.

Sam goes in for a solo session first and he and Josh are left in the waiting room.

Josh has been twitchy all morning about this and it takes Mike a few minutes to figure out that the odd rattling sound he's been hearing is actually Josh shaking so hard he's shaking the damn chair.

Mike sighs.

He's seen Josh break down before. And as much as he's loathe to admit Josh has seen him breakdown.

Sam doesn't break down. Not in front of them, anyway.

Mike breaks things and stomps about.

Josh goes full blown nuts. He shakes, he cries, he covers his head with his hands and whines and completely loses the ability to speak. It's nothing like Mike saw in the mines, thankfully and as far as Mike knows he doesn't lose touch completely anymore.

Josh is teetering, he can see, his eyes are fixed on something Mike can't see and he's starting to rock.

They've never quite worked out just what it is Josh finds so terrifying about his old psychiatrist, by all accounts they had a good relationship before Josh stopped seeing him.

Despite himself, Mike reaches out and touches Josh lightly on his shoulder.

Josh jerks, like he's forgotten Mike was even in the room, and when he turns to face Mike there's a moment where his eyes are completely blank, like he has no idea who Mike even is.

It's kind of fucking terrifying.

It's like being back in the mines watching Josh lose it.

" _Josh_."

Josh blinks; his mouth works soundlessly a few times, "M- Mike?"

"You don't have to do this, you know," he says.

Josh swallows, "But Sam - Sam - Sam wants me to."

"Yeah, but she's not going to be mad if you can't. You know that, right?"

Josh shakes his head, "No - No, I want to. I should." He takes a breath and then another, but he doesn't stop shaking.

"I must say, it is good to see you again, Joshua," Dr Hill says gently when Josh edges into the room. And he does look happy to see Josh again.

Mike follows, one hand on Josh's shoulder, supporting not forcing.

Josh is silent through their first joint session, nods and shakes his head every now and again and when they're done he mumbles something that might be _thank you_ and hightails it out of the room.

He's quiet on the car ride home but Sam looks more at peace at least and he's agreed to go back next week so that's something.

When they get home Josh disappears into the bedroom. He emerges a few minutes later to hand an xbox controller to Mike and Sam smirks at him.

-

It takes two more sessions for Josh to break and when Mike says break he does mean _break._

Fuck it, they all break and it's fucking messy and cathartic and he's pretty sure even Dr Hill sheds a few tears here and there.

It starts when Josh is coaxed in to talking about his time spent trapped in the mines (and Mike knows Dr Hill's doing this to make him feel guilty about Hannah and Beth - or maybe that's just the paranoia talking but whether it's intentional or not he does - he always fucking does.)

It's like someone's opened the floodgates, once Josh starts talking it never really stops.

He talks about screaming until his throat was raw, about realising he had choice between starvation and -

_Fuck._

Mike should have gone after him.

If it had been Sam he would.

If it had been Chris or Ash or Jess or Em or Matt he would.

He didn't even try.

He let them think Josh was dead. It was easier. Convincing himself he was dead.

Why didn't he try?

(He talked about with Dr Hill, the session after they found Josh. Didn't really mean to, it just came out - Dr Hill's good like that.

"You didn't try," Hill said, calmly. "Because you knew that going after him would probably lead to your death, Michael.)

"I saw them," Josh is saying, voice high, words running together like he can't stop them. "All of them, Beth and Hannah and Jess and Matt and Ashley and Em and Chris - _oh god -_ Chris. They were all yelling at me, all of them and it was my fault and I didn't know what to do - I had to - You understand, right? I _had_ to. I'd've - I'd've died if I didn't - but I didn't wanna - I didn't want to turn into one of those - _one of those things_ and I - "

It's only when Sam makes a choked off wet noise that Mike realises he's crying too, hot angry tears and shit, he really wants to break something right now.

"You were there, Dr Hill," Josh is saying. "You were there, you were _always_ there - telling me how awful I was - how wrong I was - how bad I was - "

Dr Hill stops him there, holds up a hand that somehow makes Josh's words come to a halt and says, "But that wasn't me, Joshua, was it?"

Josh shakes his head.

"Who was it?"

"Me," Josh whispers. "Me, me, me, _me_ \- all of them were me. I'm sorry - God, I'm so sorry - "

Dr Hill nods and then, "Joshua, what you did on that mountain to your friends was stupid and wrong but I know and _you_ know that you wouldn't have done that had you not stopped taking your medication. Michael and Samantha know that too."

And Josh looks to Sam who nods and says, "Yes, Josh we know."

And he looks at Mike and Mike doesn't trust himself to speak so he just nods.

Dr Hill nods, "Michael, what you did to Hannah was also stupid and wrong but Joshua knows that you didn't intend for things to end that way. Don't you, Josh?"

Now it's Mike's turn to look to someone for affirmation and even though he knows, he _knows_ that he what happened to Hannah and Beth wasn't his fault, he suddenly needs Josh's approval. He needs Josh's forgiveness.

"Yeah - Yes I..." Josh nods. "I know, I know."

Mike lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding.

Dr Hill looks pleased, "Now, all of you listen. What happened to each of you was horrendous and none of you deserved it. But more importantly: none of you are to blame for the deaths of your friends. The only one to blame for that is whomever - or whatever - killed them."

And he's been saying this over and over to Mike, to Sam, to all of them but this time it feels different. This time it feels like a breath of fresh air and a great weight being lifted.

When they get home Sam pulls them both to her and they end up as a tangled mess of limbs on the couch. Mike ends up in the middle, Josh on one side, Sam on the other, both warm and alive and real.

Mike's never realised before today how dazed he'd been, how numb he'd been. He'd gone to therapy and called his parents and met up with friends on autopilot, only letting himself really _feel_ things when he couldn't hide them anymore. And that's what Sam's being doing, he realises, that's how Sam's been carrying on so well.

And then there's Josh who doesn't know how to do anything other than wear his heart on his godamn sleeve.

They fall asleep before him, both of them and he sits up and listens to their breathing, imagines their hearts beating in rhythm for as long as he can.

-

Josh doesn't really leave after that.

At first he sleeps on the couch but that wears thin quickly because on the nights Sam works Mike has to get up to wake Josh from whatever horrendous nightmare he's having.

It's kind of unnerving, to be woken up by Josh shouting or begging or screaming. It leaves Mike confused in the dark, half of him back on the mountain reaching for a gun. When Sam has nightmares she goes rigid and makes these choking noises that scared Mike half to death when he first heard them and Sam's told him that his nightmares mostly involve Mike thrashing about and muttering but Josh's take them both off guard.

The first few times Mike has to deal with it he simply shakes Josh awake and stands beside him until his breathing evens out. Then after a week or so of constant nightmares he yanks Josh up by the shirt front and marches him into the bedroom, "Just sleep in here, for fucksake."

He regrets it almost instantly because Josh, as it turns out, is a sprawler.

Sharing a bed with Sam was easy. Mike's bed is a king so they both had ample room and anyway, Sam's go to sleeping position is curled over on her side as close to the edge as she can get.

Josh though seems to have the wingspan of a fucking wandering albatross. He's also the type of sprawler that naturally gravitates to the warmest part of the bed which more often than not means Mike wakes up with Josh curled up or wrapped up against him.

It's kind of awkward to say the least.

Sam seems to think it's adorable.

"It _is_ though! I love coming home to you guys all snuggled up like that," she smiles in a slightly sinister manner. "I also may or may not have snapped a few pics on occasion to use for blackmail purposes."

Mike demands she delete them and Josh says nothing, though his ears do turn a little red.

-

Co-dependency, Dr Hill calls it rather wryly.

And Mike supposes that it probably is, a little. He can't think about a life without Sam and Josh, doesn't want to.

"It's natural," Dr Hill says. "You three have been through something horrendous together, you are each uniquely qualified to understand what the other two are going through. Just try to maintain a life outside of Samantha and Joshua."

And Mike does try. He hasn't stormed out of work for months and he still goes on dates (mostly redheads these days - blondes remind him of Jess and brunettes remind of Em. _That will fade,_ Hill had assured him.

And Mike believes it.)

The dates go badly and work is stressful and they're coming up on the years anniversary of The Blackwood Tragedy, as the papers call it when Josh has another episode.

He has them now and again, Mike has learnt, mostly after nightmares or stressful situations. He loses touch completely and usually Sam's there to ground him, to hold his hand and talk to him softly until he snaps back to reality but tonight, Sam's at work.

It starts with Mike waking up to Josh's panicked whimpers, slowly getting louder and louder as he writhes. He's gotten himself tangled up in the bed sheets and that's only making things worse.

Mike sighs, rolls over and shakes him awake but when Josh's eyes snap open they're blank, seeing something that isn't there.

"Please," Josh whimpers, "No, please, I won't - I can't - I don't have to listen to you anymore!" He starts to flail, swiping at Mike and at the air and at himself so Mike pins his arms down.

"Josh," he says. "Joshua!"

"No," Josh is saying. "No, no, no, no, no - "

"For fucksake, Josh! It's not real, whatever you're seeing it's not real!"

He tries fucking everything, he taps him, he jerks him, he even slaps him (lightly) on the jaw but still Josh flails, still Josh is panicked, begging with whatever it is he's seeing to leave him alone. Mike's fucking tired, he's tired and he's stressed and all he wants is for Josh to stop making those frightened little noises, all he wants is Josh to blink at him slowly and _understand_.

It's an action born of desperation and exhaustion when Mike leans down and presses his lips to Josh's. He doesn't think about it, it's instinct (he tells himself) instinct and sleep deprivation but it works, beneath him Josh goes still.

 When he pulls back Josh is staring at him.

"Mike?" he rasps.

Mike lets out a sigh of relief, "Yeah, buddy, I'm here. Thought I'd lost you again for a second."

Josh flexes his wrists, still pinned down by Mike and Mike sits up slowly. As soon as his hands are free Josh raises one of them to touch his lips, "Did you just - Did you just kiss me?"

Mike flushes, "I - I mean - " he stammers. "I'm sorry, I just couldn't - "

Josh cuts him off, "Why are you sorry?" he asks.

Mike's stumped, "What? Are you saying you _want_ me to kiss you?"

Even in the dimly lit bedroom Mike can tell Josh's cheeks are burning, "I - uh - "

Mike sighs, exhausted, "We can talk about this in the morning."

-

They of course, don't.

In fact, they resolutely avoid each other for a day or two. Well, as much as two guys who share a bed _can_ avoid each other.

It's not until the night of the anniversary that it comes up again.

(Sort of.)

Sam's gone to work even though Mike and Josh had suggested she take the night off and Mike's had a shitty day, work was shit, getting home was shit, avoiding the memorials and news stories and renewed interest in the case was shit.

And he goes to sleep knowing he'll have bad dreams.

He dreams of being hunted, then he dreams of being the hunter, of pressing a gun to Emily's forehead and pulling the trigger, _she's a monster! she could hurt us!_ Of hunting down the rest of them before they can tell the police what he's done.

He wakes up knowing he didn't shoot Emily, knowing she was killed by a monster with Hannah's tattoo.

He wakes up to Josh's lips against his.

It's instinct he tells himself, when he reaches up to hold Josh closer, to tangle a hand in Josh's dark hair, to kiss back hungrily. Josh groans into his mouth and Mike flips them, presses Josh down into the mattress.

" _Fuck,_ Mike," Josh whines, as Mike presses open mouthed kisses to his throat. "Fuck me, _please_."

Josh is tight and hot around him and sloppy, desperate kisses and scrabbling blunt nails across his back and _fuck_ it's just what Mike needs. He makes these tiny, whiney noises that Mike swallows and when they're done he bits down hard on Mike's bottom lip before they roll apart.

Mike wonders if Sam can tell something's different when she gets in that morning.

She probably definitely can.

-

It happens again.

And then again.

And again and again and again until he mostly wakes up with an armful of Josh and Sam smirking at him as she gets ready for bed.

And eventually even Mike's internal Dr Hill is suggesting that maybe Josh is more than just a warm body to work out some pent up feelings with.

It's not until some douche they vaguely knew from school or something calls Josh a murdering psycho-fag on what is resolutely not a date and Mike sees red and breaks his douchey face that he's ready to admit he has a problem.

But whatever, he's pretty sure Sam and Josh already know that and fuck, aren't they the only ones who matter anymore?


End file.
